Sociology: Health & Illness

Today, women outlive men by how many years?

5

In 2006, the average infant in the U.S. could expect to live for ____ years.

78

The World Health Organization defines health as:

A state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being

What causes the prevalence of STDs to soar around the globe?

All of the above

Which of the following demonstrates the sociological implications of the HIV/AIDS epidemic?

All of the above

Which of the following trends is most likely to strain health care delivery systems and public health insurance in future years?

All of the above

Suicide is a major health concern for which minority group?

American Indians/Alaskan Natives

For all causes of death, ____ have the lowest death rates.

Asians/Pacific Islanders

In 2008, a nationwide study of mortality in the United States revealed that life expectancy for part of the nation's women had ____ significantly between 1983...

Decreased

In the United States, heart disease has ___ over the past 30 years.

Decreased

In developing his concept of the sick role, Parsons linked his ideas to which two classical theorists?

Durkheim and Weber

Which component of social class is consistently the strongest single predictor of good health?

Education

Which of the following have been significant factors in the most recent epidemiologic transition, which has seen a reemergence of infectious diseases?

Globalization of trade and travel, Global warming and climate change

The primary focus of the epidemiologist is on:

Health problems of social aggregates

What is the leading cause of death in the United States, accounting for more than one-third of all deaths?

Heart disease

_____ is the leading cause of death for women after age 66.

Heart disease

What minority group is most likely to use hospital emergency rooms as their primary source of medical services?

Hispanics

Decline in deaths from infectious diseases in the second half of the nineteenth century was mainly due to:

Improvements in diet, housing, and public sanitation

New research is showing that the relationship between occupation, income, education, and health changes over the life course, with _______ becoming more important as a person moves toward older age.

Income

According to Richard Wilkinson, which is the most important variable influencing a country's overall level f health?

Income inequality within a country

In quantitative studies, what variables are used to measure socioeconomic status?

Income, occupational prestige, and education

Since AIDS results from a private act that has extreme social consequences, serious moral and legal questions also arise about the rights of ____ versus the welfare of ____.

Individuals, society

____ has special significance for a society because it is traditionally used as an approximate indicator of a society's standard of living and quality of health care delivery.

Infant Mortality Rate

Medical sociology is an important area of study because:

It recognizes the role that social factors play in determining or influencing health

Whose investigations into cholera outbreaks established the foundation of modern epidemiology?

John Snow

_______ has been found to make women particularly vulnerable to psychological distress.

Lack of control

As a nation shifts from primarily rural-agricultural to urban-industrial, what changes are seen in the health profile of the nation?

Leading causes of death change from mostly infectious diseases to chronic diseases

Unlike infectious diseases, chronic diseases typically are ___ and ____.

Long term, incurable

What federal program provides health insurance to those 65 years and older?

Medicare

For all causes of death, _____ have the highest death rates.

Non-Hispanic blacks

Several studies in Britain, with its universal care, have shown that the equalization of health care alone has _____ the disparity in health between social class.

Not reduced

There are two categories of bioterrorism:

Overt and covert

A major factor causing the infant mortality difference between blacks and whites is:

Poverty

Which circumstance(s) particularly affected the development of medical sociology in its early stages?

Pressure to produce work that could be applied to medical practice and health policy. Lack of attention on the role of medicine and health from classical theorists.

The Whitehall studies conducted in Britain demonstrated that regardless of cause of death, which group had the lowest rates of mortality?

Senior administrators

One of the greatest threats from infectious diseases worldwide comes from:

Sexually transmitted diseases

A social class is a category or group of people who:

Share similar levels of wealth, status, and power

Talcott Parsons' book The Social System contained which concept important for medical sociology?

Sick role

Several studies find that the strongest and most consistent predictor of a person's health and life expectancy is

Social class

The finding that even the upper middle class lives shorter than the uppermost class, and that every class lives longer than the one directly below it is evident of what?

Social gradient in mortality

Compared to women, men usually have substantial health inferiority in terms of life expectancy because of the combination of two major effects: biological and ___

Social-phychological

People who become infected with HIV may be subjected to discrimination, which can isolate them socially. This social outcome is:

Stigma

Which of the following is TRUE about incidence and prevalence?

The incidence for a given disease can be low at the same time that its prevalence is high

What is the "fertility rate"?

The number of births per women of childbearing age

The current public policy approach to dealing with AIDS is:

Through sex-safe education

A ratio, such as the crude mortality rate, is expressed as

Total number of cases divided by the total population

In which study were syphilis patients intentionally not treated and allowed to die?

Tuskegee

Neighborhood disadvantage focuses on:

Unhealthy urban living conditions

Which is not a major bioethical issue?

Use of adult stem cells

What has been the general pattern in life expectancy during the 20th century with respect to men and women?

Women gained more than men in the first half of the century but since then men have made greater gains and the gap is narrowing